SOUTH BEND -- Concussions are still a mystery to sports medicine professionals.

Little by little, progress toward diagnosing and treating a football player's traumatized brain is being made.

Helmets, chin straps, mouthguards and other protective equipment are being scrutinized. It's a two-fold scenario: How can a player's head be better shielded? Also, how can the hits a player takes be measured?

This season, 22 Notre Dame football players will be monitored for the punishment they take in practice and games.

Notre Dame is one of three colleges that will test an "intelligent mouthguard" developed by X2IMPACT, a Seattle-based company. Washington and Stanford are the others.

Very small acceleration and rotation sensors and a wireless transmitter are engineered into a custom-fit mouthguard that 22 previously-selected Irish players will use throughout the season. According to Rob Hunt, Notre Dame's head football athletic trainer, information from every bit of contact will be relayed to software that will be monitored on a laptop along the sidelines. Collisions are measured in "g-force."

"It's just another piece for us to give us some information to potentially screen concussive-type blows," said Hunt, a 1997 Ball State grad who is in his first season with the Irish. "Unfortunately, the data doesn't correlate to, 'When you get hit this hard, you're going to have a concussion.' There's no clear information that says, 'Every time someone gets hit at 50g's, we have to stop them from playing.'

"It's just not true. There are people who take blows over 100g's and have no concussive symptoms. That makes (evaluation) a little bit challenging."

All Notre Dame athletes in every sport take the popular baseline concussion tests. Those have even filtered down to the South Bend high schools and even junior highs.

This has nothing to do with the ongoing concussion studies already in place at Notre Dame.

This mouthguard technology is an attempt to quantify in real time the contact that does the most damage.

Hunt said the custom-fitted mouthguards cost "a couple hundred dollars" each. That doesn't include the software. Much cheaper "boil and bite" mouthguards will also be available to the general public once the company is ready for its 2012 national launch date.

Hunt said Notre Dame has paid for all the equipment, so it can objectively consider its relevance.

X2IMPACT has been quietly developing the technology since 2007. Co-founder Rich Able said his son's concussion during a high school football game in Tacoma started the ball rolling. Christoph Mack, an engineer from Dartmouth, has been a big part of the development.

Able said the trials by the three football programs will help prepare for the anticipated nationwide launch. One goal is to make it affordable and technically simple enough for youth football programs to use.

"What we want to see (are the mouthguards') durability and the appropriateness for the players to use them," Mack said.

The sensors make for a mouthguard that might be a smidge bigger than a normal one, but Hunt felt it shouldn't be uncomfortable.

Hunt said there was plenty he had to consider before giving the technology a try.

"Is it going to cause us more problems than what it's worth?" Hunt said. He thought the value would be great.

"I'm excited," Hunt said. "I'm going to have an opportunity to get some information. This will prevent the 'don't tell' idea of some football players not telling us they're symptomatic (for a concussion).

"It's going to allow me to get some information ... on how hard they've been hit. It will allow me to look at them directly and say, 'Hey, you feeling OK? Are you doing alright? Are you having any problems?' At least make them look at me and talk to me, versus 'Hey, I'm fine, leave me alone.'"

Hunt said Irish head coach Brian Kelly was completely onboard with the trial.

Figuring out the logistics of monitoring the data will be a challenge. Hunt and his staff will handle observation during heavy contact times at practice. He said young doctors, training under the Irish team physicians, will be watching the hits during games.

"(Studying concussions) has been drastically different from what it was just 5-10 years ago," Hunt said. "We're significantly better at identifying the symptoms associated with (concussions). We've got a lot more tools that have been validated to better serve when to return people to play."

This is just another step. Something to help navigate an uncharted frontier.